Mosleh, M., Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. (2021). Field experiments on social media. https://psyarxiv.com/dgmc2/

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Researchers reviewed studies done on social media to study user interactions and discussed considerations and advantages of each kind of experiment. 

Field experiments on social media

- Recruit social media users as participants to survey them and study their profiles
- Participants know they are being studied
- Can obtain information about users’ demographics and activities on social media 

Field experiments on social media - hybrid studies linking traditional surveys with social media data

- Directly run field experiments on a chosen social media platform
- Participants do not know they have been selected to take part in the study 
- Include a larger variety of participants because they do not need to opt-in 
- Able to block participants into different treatments to increase precision and power 
- Studies comparing the effects before and after a specific treatment 
- Need to be careful of potential suspension from platforms due to sending too many private messages a day for example 
- May not be able to administer treatment to every participant simultaneously

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